Pre ems and adjuvants.

[Brisel]

Well I would be rather pleased if C-Cure/Remix/Grounded would hold residuals better in the top 30mm, rather than washing through my thinner land and knocking 4 weeks growth off my wheat. The southern lincs wolds had more rain & cereals look shocking over large areas. Emerged(just), toxic shock & still at just a few leaves from early Oct sowing. The march of BG onto a former earlyish sowing area, has had a real impact this winter.

Any proof, rather than the distributor tech notes I have got-photos included?

We saw a picture of excellent spreading of water using an organosillicone wetter Silwet. What we didn't discuss was whether the layer would leach downwards to the seed though @Rob Holmes rightly highlighted the risk. What trade off do you want? Better blackgrass control by a few % from better spreading or a lower control from binding the chemical to the soil so it can't harm the seedlings of the crop (or weed)?

I have a technical committee meeting with NIAB TAG next week so will ask the question then.

Any views on adjuvants from our resident agronomists @ollie989898 @cricketandcrops @richard hammond @Fromebridge ?

 

[Chalky]

Well some of the 'figures' of these adjuvants claim better weed control because a lethal dose is kept in the upper layers of soil-rather than being diluted to a sub lethal dose through a greater volume. As far as wheat phytotoxicity-I think it is the 'bad luck' of rain & thin land at the early germination stage of the cereal.

 

[Brisel]

How long after application did it rain? I've had osr crop loss from heavy rain within 2 hours of 2/3 dose of Springbok post drilling & rolling. The same 2 days after application on similar soil type was fine.

 

[Chalky]

week or so-that 'dry' week we were forecasted 15th October when we had 30mm-and in the mid wolds nearer 60mm out of the east. Top forecasting!!

This has always been a risk on chalks-so post em sprays were carefully chosen, but with a 'speckle' of blackgrass that many now want to remain thus for rogueing, you are rather left with pre-em spraying the field & treating it as infected. Heavy chemistry, light soil- there we go!

 

[Chalky]

I only ever spray my OSR with metazachlor when it is up-for these reasons. Seen it before on a neighbours-not light land either.

 

[Gong Farmer]

I've probably mentioned this before but all our work with pre-em adjuvants shows no benefit. However with all these things, wetters, stickers, penetrants, whatever there will always be a situation where they show a benefit; the chances of coming across that situation when you lay down a trial are very slim, so it's not surprising we can't put forward any supporting evidence.
Again, as with all these matters, you have to ask whether you'd be better off spending the money on more active ingredient.

 

[Brisel]

Again, as with all these matters, you have to ask whether you'd be better off spending the money on more active ingredient.

Or, can you spend a bit extra on an adjuvant to make up for the fact that you are compromising application efficacy by using lower water volumes or coarser nozzles in order to get the timings right in marginal spraying conditons.

Trial plots sprayed at the perfect timing with 200 l/ha water is one thing. On fam practice is another. Just saying

 

[Brisel]

I only ever spray my OSR with metazachlor when it is up-for these reasons. Seen it before on a neighbours-not light land either.

MTZ post emergence of the weeds really doesn't work as well. Split dose - half or 2/3 pre em then the rest at cotyledons expanded when you'd be back with a contact graminicide and/or flea beetle spray anyway?

Clearfield?

 

[Oat]

Are people also considering any inbuilt adjuvants which may be in the formulated product, as opposed to separate adjuvant products applied in tank-mix. Some chemical formulations may have different inbuilt wetters, surfactants etc... which other identical active ingredient products may not.

Another consideration can be the actual formulation type. Is an EC better than a SC or WG? (possibly)

 

[Flat 10]

week or so-that 'dry' week we were forecasted 15th October when we had 30mm-and in the mid wolds nearer 60mm out of the east. Top forecasting!!

This has always been a risk on chalks-so post em sprays were carefully chosen, but with a 'speckle' of blackgrass that many now want to remain thus for rogueing, you are rather left with pre-em spraying the field & treating it as infected. Heavy chemistry, light soil- there we go!

It is notable now that chalky areas here that used not to have BG now have and require robust pre-ems.
However the soil here is not exactly light.

 

[cricketandcrops]

We saw a picture of excellent spreading of water using an organosillicone wetter Silwet. What we didn't discuss was whether the layer would leach downwards to the seed though @Rob Holmes rightly highlighted the risk. What trade off do you want? Better blackgrass control by a few % from better spreading or a lower control from binding the chemical to the soil so it can't harm the seedlings of the crop (or weed)?

I have a technical committee meeting with NIAB TAG next week so will ask the question then.

Any views on adjuvants from our resident agronomists @ollie989898 @cricketandcrops @richard hammond @Fromebridge ?

I'll tell you come June when visually will see if a difference as have tried a couple of blocks within fields this year with pre em

 

[Steevo]

I'll tell you come June when visually will see if a difference as have tried a couple of blocks within fields this year with pre em

June you say....?

 

[ollie989898]

As I understood it, the formulation type selected for individual products was driven by a host of factors, not just by product effectiveness in end use.

I do not have much in the way of what would normally be considered light land, the herbicide damage spoken of here would be a rare thing and very limited all the times I have seen it.

As I have elaborated in the past, the adjuvants I use are for a specific reason or situation. I don't have a universal policy, I am the automatic sceptic with these things as a default policy.

I can appreciate the interest with the oil type products and autumn chemistry. Where folk are at their wits end and already putting in max doses of Liberator, Defy or whatever and looking for some thing to just improve things, even by some small percent, it's an option if you want to pay the money, once you have sorted your seed bed and all the other cultural controls etc.

You won't find total agreement on anything in agronomist world, and farmers in my experience are even more divided about various things. For example I don't universally use foliar nutrients yet some individual farmers have seen their benefit in a particular year and conclude their crop is doomed to fail annually if I do not.

From the times I have used Silwet I would not hesitate to use it in certain situations, but I personally would not use it universally because I don't like spending people's money unnecessarily. I can't say I have used a lot of C-Cure or Seed oils or any of the autumn stuff, perhaps others can speak about their effectiveness.

From what it is worth, I would say one thing and that is that the more informed the farmer is in these kind of issues, the easier my job becomes. I have always made a habit of trying to explain the in's and out's of the chemistry or agronomy thingamybob so that customers understand the bills or end results that occur.

 

[cricketandcrops]

June you say....?

Apologies for not remembering that posting on here is life's top priority [emoji12]

Basically two 5 ha blocks in 30 ha fields and no difference as black grass control was excellent across whole fields.

 

[ollie989898]

Apologies for not remembering that posting on here is life's top priority [emoji12]

Basically two 5 ha blocks in 30 ha fields and no difference as black grass control was excellent across whole fields.

I found pre-em/autumn chemistry worked well. The difference is surely a drier autumn and better seed beds??

 

[cricketandcrops]

I tend to think the adjuvants would show improved performance in sub optimal conditions, last year were near perfect conditions for residual performance. Might try a couple of cans again this year if someone gets twitchy and drills early!

 

[franklin]

I was bored earlier in the week. Some might say *too* bored. So I sprayed a field with the same pre-em but using 3 different (or so I thought) adjuvants, and one control strip of just the pre-em.

I used:

Remix from my Agrovista agronomist.
Backrow from my Agrii agronomist.
C-Cure from my Frontier agronomist.
and nowt, as recommended by me.

Will be keeping an eye to see if anything exciting occurs. One thing that struck me was the incredible similarity between the C-Cure and the Backrow labels which looked exactly the same. And they were both put on the adjuvant list at the same time. And they both have the same ingredient. Wonder if they will be the same price. I think we have a person on the forum from Interago who will be able to say if they are the same thing but in different cans. Both cans opened fine, in case you are wondering.

The Backrow / C-cure fluff says "proven to boost black-grass control with flufenacet containing herbicides by an average of 7%" and says these are from independent trials over 3 years. http://www.interagro.co.uk/products/backrow - this is exciting as I used a flufenacet based herbicide

I had a search on the web (quickly) but couldnt find anything much on the Remix, but think it looks pretty much the same as Grounded, as (http://www.agrovista.co.uk/technica...echniques-improve-agchem-efficacy&newsid=3571) Agrovista and Helena are "sister-companies".

When I get back in the groove, I will ask for the trials data for each and see what is forthcoming.

As I see @Mike@Bayer has written a piece about Liberator recently, perhaps he has a favoured adjuvant to partner it? - https://cropscience.bayer.co.uk/news-and-opinion/articles/2017/09/why-buy-liberator/ - note I did not use Liberator, but something very similar, which is equally gutting as the piece would suggest that doing so was an unwise plan.

 

[Flat 10]

Interesting. Let us know your results. Remix is the new name for grounded afaik .

 

[ollie989898]

Apparently chucking plain old drill into the tank as a pre-em adjuvant is AOK.